There are various components that fall under the umbrella of fitness. You can train for muscle strength, flexibility, body composition, muscle endurance, and cardiorespiratory fitness. Cardiovascular training is also known as cardio fitness. The word “cardio” comes from the Greek word “Kardia,” which means “heart.” In this article, we delve deeper into what cardio fitness is and who it is suitable for. Additionally, we explore the benefits of cardio fitness, especially for weight loss.
Who is Cardio Fitness For?
Cardio fitness is a form of exercise that improves cardiovascular fitness and helps burn calories. Unlike strength training or other explosive forms of fitness, cardio training involves longer sessions and is often referred to as endurance training. The equipment used for this type of training includes the treadmill, bike, stepper, or elliptical machine. Rowing is also a good example of cardio training.
The advantage of doing cardio fitness is that it is readily accessible and therefore suitable for a wide audience. Both young people and older adults can participate in cardio training. Engaging in cardio training improves your fitness, heart rate, and breathing. Additionally, it can contribute to increased calorie expenditure, aiding in weight loss.
Weight Loss with Cardio Fitness
Engaging in cardio fitness keeps your body in an active mode for an extended period. Your heart rate increases, your breathing becomes faster, and you start sweating due to the energy released. This results in burning energy, or calories. This can lead to weight loss. This is one of the reasons why cardio fitness is often used by people aiming to lose weight.
Often, by consuming fewer calories, you achieve a calorie deficit more quickly. After all, burning many calories is more intensive than consuming fewer calories. But, of course, that is a personal choice.
After the cardio workout, the glycogen stores in your muscles and liver are almost empty, and you should replenish them with carbohydrates as soon as possible. Additionally, protein can contribute to faster recovery.
Results of Cardio Fitness
The more frequent the cardio training, the more effective it will be. Of course, you need to rest sufficiently to allow your body time to recover, but engaging in this form of training will significantly improve your fitness. Try to train at least twice a week to keep the time between sessions from being too long. Also, adjust your diet to see quick results, both physically and mentally.
Benefits of Cardio Fitness
Because there can be many diverse benefits and reasons to engage in cardio fitness, we have included them in this article. You can use cardio training purely as a warm-up for strength training, but cardio fitness can also be used as a workout itself to improve overall fitness. Lastly, you can use cardio fitness as a way to burn extra calories when you want to lose weight. Plenty of benefits!
Improvement of Fitness
First and foremost, exercise, whether cardio fitness or another form of sport, helps improve overall health. When you engage in cardio training, it’s a form of aerobic exercise. The difference between aerobic and anaerobic training is described in detail in the article on this topic, but essentially, it comes down to how muscles consume energy. When you start moving, no oxygen is involved in supplying your body with energy for the first few minutes. Only after these initial minutes does your body start using oxygen and switch to the aerobic phase to obtain energy. This form of training is very effective for improving your overall fitness.
Weight Loss
Engaging in cardio fitness often involves prolonged aerobic training. Besides requiring oxygen for energy supply, these training sessions also have the advantage of burning a lot of energy. This energy expenditure can contribute to weight loss. When you want to lose weight, you depend on the number of calories you consume daily and the number you burn daily. If you consume more calories than you burn, you will gain weight. If you burn more than you need, you will lose weight.
Strength training is a great way to achieve a negative energy balance, but you can also achieve this through cardio training. In fact, the amount of calories you can burn through running generally exceeds that of an hour of strength training. The caveat we want to make here is that this is highly dependent on intensity. However, we dare to conclude that cardio fitness can play an important role when weight loss is one of the goals. Below are the number of calories burned per type of cardio training:
900 kcal: 1 hour of running at a pace of 12 kilometers per hour
750 kcal: 1 hour of running at a pace of 10 kilometers per hour
600 kcal: 1 hour of running at a pace of 8 kilometers per hour
550 kcal: 1 hour of cycling at a pace of 20 kilometers per hour
525 kcal: 1 hour of tennis
400 kcal: 1 hour of swimming
Variety
If you exercise a lot in the gym and have the same sports environment every day, cardio fitness is a welcome change. Especially in summer when the temperature rises, it’s nice to be able to exercise outdoors instead of in the warm gym. Running, cycling, or mountain biking can provide great alternatives.
Nowadays, with all the fitness apps and technology, it’s even more challenging to engage in cardio training. After all, you can easily see your own speed, as well as that of your friends. Runkeeper, Runtastic, and many other apps, like Nike Plus, have very nice features that you can use if you prefer the outdoors as your sports terrain.
Do you have other reasons or benefits for doing cardio fitness? Let us know in the comments!
